Our test setup has been designed with a total of three boards on the chopping block; first we have the MSI X48 Platinum motherboard, along with this we have the ASUS Maximus Extreme X38 motherboard that has been the best overclocking X38 we have managed to get our hands on and also the GIGABYTE P35T-DQ6 which sets the standard for us here at TweakTown in the overclocking dept. with a massive 581MHz FSB which is still our record.

In stock mode we used a 9x multiplier and a 333MHz FSB to give our CPU a stock 3GHz speed which our Core 2 Quad QX6700 can handle without any voltage increases. We set the DRAM to DDR3-1333MHz which is the fastest speed we can get without enabling XMP which requires a 400MHz FSB. While the P35T-DQ6 doesn't officially support this, using a 333MHz FSB we do get 1333MHz memory.

For overclocking we clocked the memory back to a 1:1 memory ratio as well as a 6x CPU multiplier to reduce the CPU and memory as being the bottleneck. We lock the PCI Express to 100MHz and the PCI to 33MHz. In our array of overclocking tests we had the P35T-DQ6 at 581MHz, the MSI X48 Platinum at 558MHz and the ASUS Maximus Extreme at 527MHz.

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First off we look at memory performance. We see X38 and X48 identical at stock speeds; however they both manage to just creep ahead of the P35. Intel did do a bit of a number on the DDR3 memory controller on the X38 and X48 compared to the P35 to give it a leg up, even at stock speeds. When overclocking comes in we see the X48 Platinum behind the P35T due to the higher FSB the P35T, but it's not as huge a gap as we would have expected.

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